Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Ardoin.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
Born in Lafayette, Louisiana – I was a cajun growing up in the lands of seafood and great music. I became heavily impacted by the regions art and musical influences and was also fortunate to have a family of artists who also inspired me. Around 2007 I began my studies of Architecture at the University of Louisiana, while also pursuing a musical career, playing drums around town and working at Scott’s Drum Center in Lafayette.
2011 brought on heavy change. I picked up and moved to Providence, RI to continue my education at Rhode Island School of Design. Just prior to this, I established my company ‘Three On The Floor’ in 2013, which is an online vintage drum retail shop, specializing in drums from the 1920s-1970s. This is a sole one-man operation that still continues to grow each year and has been a tool for finding, preserving and sharing these great American made instruments while also enabling myself to enter into a global community of musicians that I feel fortunate to be a part of. In addition to running my business and attending school for Architecture graduate studies, I was working with a Blues Rock band called Torn Shorts. We were playing constantly around the North East and found our way down to Texas and Louisiana.
In 2014 I embarked on another large move and became a part of the (PDR) Planning Research & Design team, an architecture firm in downtown Houston, Texas. The relocation was extremely fruitful for both my passions for architecture as well as music. Immediately I found myself in a town that has an outstanding supporting foundation for art and music. Currently, I’m working as a designer on multiple large scale commercial projects with fantastic teams, while also privileged to be playing with many artists and acts such as Williams & the Texas Starlight, The Mighty Orq, Max Flinn, Charlie & the Regrets, to mention a few. Toggling between my rolls as a designer, musician, and entrepreneur has been very demanding, however, they all seem to greatly inspire and influence one another.
Please tell us about your art.
My passion for percussion started at a very early age. Again, influenced by growing up in the Acadiana region, attending festivals and concerts were abundant and impactful. I began playing the drums at age 10 and fell in love with the instrument. Fast forwarding a few years through school and working at the local drum shop, I landed on a 1960s Rogers drum kit that change my perspective of the instrument completely. As I began discovering more of these vintage drums, the craftsmanship and artistic vision that these had was astonishing to me. How engineering and art, along with the help of organic sound characteristics in woods and metals enabled artists to find their own voice to then create music with was a cycle that was pure in intention and told a story of American history all at the same time.
I started gathering and restoring these instruments with a sort of fever mentality if you will. It got to the point where I was only able to afford more by selling some that I had. Slowly, the creation of Three On The Floor was beginning without my knowing. My design background was perfectly suited for creating this company by truly allowing for me to execute my exact vision, from web design to product photography. I’ve been able to learn and sharpen my skills across all of these platforms through the growth of the company.
The very first set of drums I had purchased and sold, went to Marco Giovino, who took them on the road with Alison Krauss. I was able to see the drums that I had worked on up on a huge stage with some of the best musicians in the world. Shortly after, I was invited by Marco to hang out with Robert Plant and his band (Marco was playing drums at this time) when they were coming through the South on one of their tours. As silly as it may sound, at the age of roughly 20, this was a large eye-opener as to how welcoming and supportive this community was, which my business had helped introduce me to.
To this day, Three On The Floor has served as a tool for me to discover, preserve, and play these beautiful instruments while also allowing me to travel and meet some of the most interesting musicians.
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing artists today?
In the art world, music alike, support has become one of the biggest challenges that anyone is faced with. This can be seen as financial or simply just exposure. This is highly due to the over saturation of bad art led on by corporate marketing and and consumer convenience. There is a TON of great art today.. however, the average individual doesn’t take the time to search for it. This can be art, literature, music, theology… it’s all the same. Unfortunately, the convenience of large financial organizations telling the general public what is good art or what is good music has created a truly thoughtless and mindless public conception of art. This has also created an impermeable ceiling for smaller artists to attempt to be heard and understood.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
For vintage drum gear, my shop is live at www.ThreeOnTheFloor.com. I have both an Instagram account (threeonthefloor) for business and (chrisardoin_) for personal. Simply attending local live shows is how you support art.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.threeonthefloor.com
- Email: chris@threeonthefloor.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/threeonthefloor/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/threeonthefloordrums/?ref=bookmarks
Image Credit:
Chris Ardoin and Todd Ardoin
Getting in touch: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
